Why Disaster Recovery Lessons from Hurricane Helene Matter in Capital Project Development

JD Solomon
Sep 29
4 min read

Hurricane Helene's aftermath presents a clear case study of why capital projects can stall before money, permits, and regulatory clarity are aligned.

Hurricane Helene's wreckage in western North Carolina has exposed the friction points that arise whenever large-scale recovery moves from emergency response into sustained program development. Environmental permitting related to air, water, and solid waste is where policy, public health, and bureaucratic timing collide. Hurricane Helene's aftermath presents a clear case study of why recovery can stall before money, permits, and regulatory clarity are aligned. The project development and delivery lessons learned should not be forgotten.

Water: The 401 / 404 Dance

The Clean Water Act Section 404 (dredge-and-fill) is implemented by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), while Section 401 gives states the authority to certify that federally permitted activities will comply with state water quality standards.

After Helene, the USACE issued "quick guidance" outlining exemptions and Nationwide Permits to expedite repairs. However, many restoration activities still require coordination with North Carolina’s 401 & Buffer Permitting Branch — a process that can be slow when hundreds of road, culvert, and stream repairs compete for attention.

The federal-state dance matters because USACE cannot lawfully finalize some 404 approvals without a 401 certification or an explicit waiver. Timelines stretch when state reviews are lengthened by public notice, threatened endangered-species reviews, or changed project designs.

A practical consequence is that local governments and contractors can be left holding partially completed work or using temporary fixes that later require retroactive permitting or costly rework. Retroactive permitting and rework inflate program costs and complicate fund eligibility.

Air: Debris Burning, Incinerators, and Monitoring Gaps

Air permitting becomes a flashpoint after wind and flood damage create mountains of vegetative and construction debris. North Carolina’s Division of Air Quality issued Helene-specific guidance allowing certain managed burning (including air-curtain incinerators under strict conditions) and encouraging chipping and landfilling to reduce smoke and fine-particle exposure.

Operational constraints, such as limited numbers of permitted incinerators, local opposition to open burning, and variable monitoring capacity for particulate matter, mean that debris disposal often requires local permits, temporary regulatory relief, and rapid coordination with state and EPA officials to avoid public health impacts.

The EPA and state guidance on disaster debris and post-storm burning has been relied upon. Still, patchwork implementation leaves air quality uneven across counties.

Solid Waste and Temporary Facilities

Landfills and temporary debris sites can be overwhelmed quickly. Solid waste permitting for temporary cells, hazardous material segregation, and leachate management requires fast authorizations. When solid waste permitting lags, local governments face issues such as illegal dumping, longer haul times, and increased costs.

Streamlining, such as pre-approved temporary site criteria or rapid environmental reviews, reduces program delays. Advance planning is required, and local and state agencies were not prepared for an environmental event like Hurricane Helene.

Why Disaster Status and Timelines Diverge Across Agencies

FEMA’s disaster declarations and cost-share policies operate under the Stafford Act and the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a “no-year” account managed specifically for presidentially declared disasters. FEMA also applies time-limited policy flexibility. For example, temporary 100% cost-share periods) that can expire after specific windows unless extended.

Other federal agencies (HUD, USDA, EPA) have different statutory authorities, funding sources, and eligibility triggers. That means these programs may phase their programs on different schedules or require different certifications to unlock funds. That mismatch means a jurisdiction can still be in an active FEMA recovery posture while encountering different timelines and paperwork for an EPA water permit or a HUD housing grant.

North Carolina’s practice of extending certain state disaster declarations is a pragmatic response. However, state recovery programs are typically expanded by an additional six months at a time. These six-month extensions are insufficient to accommodate permitting and design processes that typically take five years or more, and their unpredictability creates costly uncertainty for designers and owners.

The better solution is for disaster declarations to last as long as federal funding from agencies like FEMA is available. Fee waivers, expedited permitting, and temporary burning rules are more effective when viewed realistically in relation to how recovery projects are implemented and funded.

Lessons Learned One Year After Hurricane Helene

The Hurricane Helene recovery highlights that environmental permitting and federally provided funding must be treated as a core component of capital program development. Pre-agreed emergency permitting templates (401/404 coordination protocols, pre-approved temporary debris-site standards, and air-curtain incinerator deployment plans), paired with cross-agency funding timeline alignment, dramatically reduce waste, rework, and public-health risk. Helene's recovery highlights the cost of not having those systems in place. The recovery from the next major event can be greatly enhanced by the leverage created when state and federal partners align both rules and resources.

JD Solomon Inc. provides solutions for program development, asset management, and facilitation at the nexus of facilities, infrastructure, and the environment. Visit our Program Development page for more information on business cases, third-party assessments, phasing projects, and related services.